Obama expands war on political speech

There is one mystery that has perplexed political observers after Senate Democrats decided to violate Senate rules allowing the minority party to block presidential appointments. And that was why it was so important to do so to help Patricia Ann Millett to get confirmed to the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals.

After all, when this regulation is challenged — and it will be — that is the court where the case will invariably wind up, which handles cases involving federal regulations.

As for the regulation itself, not content with merely targeting tea party and other 501(c)4 organizations that engage in various types of political activity on an ad-hoc basis, the Obama administration via the Treasury Department has come out with a far more uniform approach to stifling (c)4 political speech.

Never mind that the law itself only explicitly prohibits 501(c)(3) charities from engaging in political activity, but not (c)(4) social welfare groups. In fact, it was the regulation that put a limitation in place. The 1960 regulation implementing 501(c)(4) states, “The promotion of social welfare does not include direct or indirect participation or intervention in political campaigns on behalf of or in opposition to any candidate for public office.”

It also further defines what social welfare means under the law: “An organization is operated exclusively for the promotion of social welfare if it is primarily engaged in promoting in some way the common good and general welfare of the people of the community.”

Under existing rules, an organization may carry on electioneering activities so long as it does not constitute a majority of its activities. But, no longer.

Now, limitations will be imposed not simply on advocacy for or against a candidate for public office, as has been the case for over 50 years, but on any communication that even mentions a public official who happens to be a candidate. Specifically, the regulations will define “certain communications that are close in time to an election and that refer to a clearly identified candidate as electioneering communications.”

It applies blackout periods 60 days prior to the general election and 30 days prior to primary elections at the federal, state, and local level.

But as Americans for Limited Government President Nathan Mehrens notes, this will not apply to 501(c)5 labor unions and (c)6 trade associations: “the proposed regulation does not apply to labor organizations, although the proposal states that the Administration is considering a regulation in this area. Thus, a likely result is that a final rule will be promulgated further restricting non-profit speech and activities long before any comparable regulation is promulgated on the activities of labor organizations.”

Mehrens summarized, “The net result will be more restrictions on the rights of conservative leaning organizations while the same restrictions on left leaning labor organizations remain unfinished.”

Adding ambiguity to how the regulations might be implemented, the IRS will no longer merely consider the costs of communications in determining eligibility for the 501(c)4 tax status. It will use a far more subjective, content-based standard: “the expansion of the types of communications covered in the proposed regulations reflects the fact that an organization’s tax exempt status is determined based on all of its activities, even low cost and volunteer activities, not just its large expenditures.”

And, the icing on the cake, “The Treasury Department and the IRS intend that content previously posted by an organization on its Web site that clearly identifies a candidate and remains on the Web site during the specified pre-election period would be treated as candidate-related political activity.”

Can you say ex post facto?

To give readers an idea of the broad implication of this regulation, Americans for Limited Government is a 501(c)4 organization whose websites have content dating back to 2008.

Understandably under prior rules allowing it we have written extensively about public officials, including members of Congress, who also happen to be candidates that run for office every two years.

Thousands of articles, in fact — nearly all of them mention public officials (who are usually running for reelection) or reference legislation or policies they support.

These are not electioneering communications. They do not advocate for or against the election of candidates — a constitutionally protected activity, but let’s leave that aside for a moment — they supported or criticized policies being proposed in the public arena.

But because the articles mention officials who happen to be candidates, and because primary elections occur at various intervals throughout election years, and because it is impossible to decipher by what standard the agency will determine to what degree actions are “candidate-related political activity,” complying with the new regulation might make it impossible for Americans for Limited Government to continue in its current form.

It is possible we would have to either shut down our website or go article by article to remove ones that mentioned public officials who happen to be running for reelection. Or redact the names of any officials who might be running for office and replace the names with black rectangles.

We might even have to remove any hyperlinks to roll call votes alerting the American people how their elected representatives voted on critical issues, since those links would include the names of candidates too. Or also links to any other news articles that might mention candidates. You know, just to be thorough.

Because primaries occur throughout federal election years, the blackout could apply through the better parts of 2014 and 2016. But don’t forget Virginia and New Jersey, which have state elections in federal off years (i.e. 2013, 2015, etc.), and we’ve written about issues concerning public officials there, too. Don’t want to go through all the trouble of redacting federal, state and local officials in 2014 and 2016, and not remember to remove Virginia and New Jersey ones for 2013 and 2015.

During all of those years, it is possible that to comply we’d have to shut down much of our communications since they so often reference government, if not elections.

That is, to keep 501(c)4 tax status, and not be classified as, say, a 527 political action committee. Both are tax-exempt entities, but with one critical difference: 527s have to disclose donations to the Federal Election Commission, and 501(c)4s do not.

And therein we get to the true intent of the new IRS regulation, which is to achieve via regulation what Congress could not when the DISCLOSE Act was defeated in 2010. The Obama administration is hell-bent on regulating critics of the administration out of existence by threatening to expose organizations’ membership lists.

Never mind what the Supreme Court stated clearly in NAACP v. Alabama (1958). Then Justice John Marshall Harlan’s majority opinion stated, applying the First Amendment via the Fourteenth to Alabama, “We hold that the immunity from state scrutiny of membership lists which the Association claims on behalf of its members is here so related to the right of the members to pursue their lawful private interests privately and to associate freely with others in so doing as to come within the protection of the Fourteenth Amendment.”

Should the regulation go into effect in 2014, considering that it took about two years for federal courts to litigate the Citizens United decision, the blackout periods could be in effect through the entire 2016 election cycle.

Before it comes to this, the Supreme Court upon finalization of the rule will need to be petitioned and stay all implementation of the regulation in order to protect the First Amendment rights of citizens of all political stripes. To allow these regulations to govern speech during the next few cycles without full court scrutiny would be a grave disservice that the Supreme Court can and should stop.

Robert Romano is the senior editor of Americans for Limited Government.

pduffy

If you remove a ‘tax exemption’ based on political speech, that’s a ‘speech tax’! Speak words the ruling elite don’t like and YOU GET TAXED! If that’s not a blatant violation of freedom of speech, I don’t know what is. King George would be proud of this government as even he didn’t go that far. He just wanted to tax the tea.

Myrtle Linder

Obama, “Reeks of bondage!!!” In his plans: “GOD and JESUS CHRIST IS OUT!”

spidermike

Regarding previous cartoons: “We might have to go back and black out the faces of any officials who appear that also happen to be running for office.”
Haven’t we been told that it is “racist” to be in “blackface”? The effing Libtards will get you one way or the other, so effem is they can’t take a joke. It would seem that the ballot box is quickly becoming an outmoded device to effect change, but the is another device. It also begins with the letter “b”, comes in many different sizes and makes quite a noise when “cast”.

chaslie45

This is a good example of one of the reasons the federal government will never replace the income tax with a flat or fair tax. Because it is all about control and social engineering.

regulus30

shut up you conservatives ;”DER FUHRER ” HAS SPOKEN.

pearl87

Look, the process is completely corrupted. Forget trying to change the results of “elections” as a means to fixing this govt gone wild. Even if we could reach the low information voter and change his mind, the entire system is fraudulent and the outcome is predetermined. We have to act on a more basic level than playing a fixed game by the rules of the criminals.

Ashley

I think it’s time we don’t worry about tax status any longer. Get out of the “tax deductible” part of the donations and just set up conservative organizations. People are so fed up with this administration, they will donate anyway. Keep the irs out of it and have real free speech.

ca1

“Limitations will be imposed not simply on advocacy for or against a candidate for public office, but on any communication that even mentions a public official who happens to be a candidate, even if the communication occurred years ago.”… hmm, sounds like we’re going to be learning all about what obama has been spending millions to hide all these years as his popularity is plummeting… the gall of this sociopath in the white house …. just when you think you heard it all… his “team” comes up w/one more law/mandate(limitation)….this is probably coordinated w/team clinton so that SHE won’t be tainted w/his secrets.. AS IF…they both have more skeletons/secrets that when we learn them will straighten our hair!!! bring it!

billyjeff2

Right.
What?

mike

facebook has told me this page has been banned when I tried to share this article.

Pat McBride

I see a shortage of rope and heavy timbers coming.

Florida Jim

The people who wrote Obamacare, Dodd/Frank, the IRS rules are also waiting to pounce on anyone who disagrees with this fraud called Obama. Stalin, Hitler, Mao, Amin, Chavez, Castro all acted in a similar fashion right to their deaths.

Death2Unions

We are witnessing the establishment of America as a Marxist State. The blood of citizens flowing in the streets will be here in short order.

daveveselenak

Man sheeple, how much more of this TYRANNY are you going to put up with before we start uniting to put in place a REVOLUTION if this out of control, totalitarian, Godless regime steals all of your freedom? America, “home of the brave and land of the free” my ass, you’ve become “home of the ‘FRAID and land of the ENSLAVED” WAKE UP, WISE UP, RISE UP!

Public_Citizen

Once again we see the entrenched Civil Service bureaucracy acting as the tool of the “elites” to ensure that a favored few [in this instance labor unions and similarly situated “friends” of liberals/socialists] receive a grant of rights and privileges being specifically denied to persons of a different political philosophy who have organized themselves for “the common good” in a similar fashion to the formal regulatory structure of a labor union.
This smells of corruption and comes very close to creating entire classes of people who are treated differently before the law. The IRS has vast resources and the courts have upheld their authority to seize property and imprison people and this power is being used to quash ~before the fact~ legitimate dissent by asserting special privilege for those who hold elected office.
This has the nature if not the label of the immunities and privileges granted to those who hold “titles of nobility” and moves us ever farther down the slippery slope that is removing us from a Republic and advancing us toward a Socialist Dictatorship, otherwise known as small c communism.

we the people,who are the real government.had enough of this ineligible treasonous war crimes traitor ovomit.and all his unconstitituional administration.then join with us and sheriff joe in phonenix on feb 22,2014,and with the oas{operation American spring}in Washington dc on may 16,2014.time to sweep the smell out of Washington dc.god bless sheriff joe and cold case posse,dr oily taitz,chuck Norris,frank serpico,and all legal American veternas/citizens.god bless america